Has anyone read Iron Tower Trilogy by Dennis L. McKiernan?

[slimykuotoan]

I'm thinking o' picking it up.

[slimykuotoan]

I'll be honest, it's the book cover artwork that's grabbing me.

[RunningLaser]

Slimy- I have and I enjoyed it greatly. Let me say the following though- it is Lord of the Rings. You can read about why he wrote it the way he did online. IIRC, the first book was supposed to be a sequel to LoTR, but it didn't fly. Another publishing company liked it, so he rewrote things . In fact, straight from the wiki
"The Iron Tower Trilogy was written as the backstory to a proposed sequel to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings novel, so unsurprisingly it strongly resembles that work. It has even caused cries of plagiarism from readers who are unfamiliar with its genesis."

Anyways- I happened to read the books before i read LoTR It holds a special place in my heart. They were a bit more action orientated and readable from what I remember. I'm surprised that no campaign setting ever came out for it.

[Omote]

Ugh, I totally hate it. For the same exact reasons that RunningLaser gave, it's awful. I never read past the first book in the series because it was a total LOTR ripoff. That was before I knew the backstory behind the publication of the Iron Tower Trilogy.

Still, I can't recommend it as you'll be constantly distracted by the faux LOTR references. Annoying of the highest order.

~O

[RunningLaser]

Ugh, I totally hate it. For the same exact reasons that RunningLaser gave, it's awful. I never read past the first book in the series because it was a total LOTR ripoff. That was before I knew the backstory behind the publication of the Iron Tower Trilogy.

Still, I can't recommend it as you'll be constantly distracted by the faux LOTR references. Annoying of the highest order.

~O

I can totally understand this. If I hadn't read it before LoTR... Funny thing is, when I did read LoTR later on, I kept thinking "this seems so very familiar..."

[slimykuotoan]

Cool. Thanks guys!

I just picked up books 1 & 3 -they didn't have 2 in stock.

The lotr rip off comments actually really make these books appeal to me all the more, because well, that's totally what I'm in the mood for.

[slimykuotoan]

I don't actually see that much of a lotr connection, aside from perhaps the flavour.

There are a bunch of halflings battling stuff, and an ancient evil is rising.

What fantasy novel doesn't have an evil rising?

The criticism seems unwarranted to me.

Anyhap, it's an action packed quick read thus far, and it's hitting the spot nicely.

[slimykuotoan]

It has me wanting to play a halfling at any rate.

[RunningLaser]

Slimy- you'll see it soon enough Can't tell you the things without spoiling the story. Again, I thoroughly enjoyed the books- I may take some flak, but there's things I think are much cooler in Mithgar than Middle-Earth.

Glad to hear that you are liking it so far. He wrote two other books for it- the Silver Call series. Those were the ones I read first.

[RunningLaser]

and this thread got me to order the books again on Amazon

[slimykuotoan]

Yeah, thanks for the recommendation RunningLaser; I really needed a new fantasy series, and I'll be continuing this one for sure.

[lobocastle]

I happen to like his work. When D&D 3E came out I was going to do a conversion. Here is a link where the author uses Rolemaster for his character races.

http://www.geocities.ws/mithgarpedia/mithrole.html

[moriarty777]

I must have read the trilogy 25-30 years ago or so... I enjoyed it at the time. Back then, I didn't make the LotR connection but I was reading A LOT of fantasy back then too. From the fantasy TSR novels (Dragonlance... Fortgotten Realms... etc), to The First & Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever... as well as Edding's Belgariard and Malorian. Just lots of stuff overall.

M

[Treebore]

I must have read the trilogy 25-30 years ago or so... I enjoyed it at the time. Back then, I didn't make the LotR connection but I was reading A LOT of fantasy back then too. From the fantasy TSR novels (Dragonlance... Fortgotten Realms... etc), to The First & Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever... as well as Edding's Belgariard and Malorian. Just lots of stuff overall.

M

Happy belated Birthday! I saw the notification on SKYPE, but...

[moriarty777]

Happy belated Birthday! I saw the notification on SKYPE, but...

Thank you!

And no worries...

M

[Tadhg]

The First & Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever..
M

Sorry, Pat.

But anytime I see any mention of this disgusting piece of SHIT, I have to shout out . . avoid it at all costs.

And not just because the "hero" rapes the person that heals him . . the writing is absolute horse shit to the nth degree.

This author should be beaten to a pulp and I would do if I ever encountered the pig bitch.

Donaldson equals the worst garbage I've have ever heard about . . cause after that first chapter, I tore the book to shreads.

I would burn this motherfucker to death if I could.

[Buttmonkey]

The First & Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever..
M

Sorry, Pat.

But anytime I see any mention of this disgusting piece of SHIT, I have to shout out . . avoid it at all costs.

And not just because the "hero" rapes the person that heals him . . the writing is absolute horse shit to the nth degree.

This author should be beaten to a pulp and I would do if I ever encountered the pig bitch.

Donaldson equals the worst garbage I've have ever heard about . . cause after that first chapter, I tore the book to shreads.

I would burn this motherfucker to death if I could.

Wait wait wait! You stopped after the first chapter?! If so, then you have no idea how bad this series is. The climax of the third novel is actually pretty damn well done, but getting there is a nightmare. I couldn't finish the second trilogy. So, so awful. No, wait. I should check my thesaurus for another word for awful and use that instead. That is the Donaldson way. Gah! I hate the Covenant books.

[Penny-Whistle]

Well, thank you guys for making my day!

I had to look this series up. I mean I have heard of it and vaguely thought it had received some kind of award or something but never read it. The one star Goodreads reviews had me laughing out loud.

Here's a sample from a user called Colin, "I've often lamented that five-star rating systems, such as the one used by GoodReads, don't allow for ratings lower than one star. Were it possible, I'd give this book negative stars; I think it actually sucks the quality away from books shelved near it, and generally makes the world a less joyful, less intelligent place to be."

Holly said, " I hated everything about the first few chapters of this book ... I hurled it at the wall in disgust and never finished reading it."

Alex said, "I picked this up because I was told that it was quite good. I was disappointed to learn that it is exactly the opposite of that."

Ethan said, "This book hasn’t aged well. Perhaps back in 1978 when it was published, it was amazing and interesting because there was nothing to compare it to. Unfortunately, the world has moved on and left this poor guy in the back of the used bookstore, where he sits and twiddles his dusty laurels and hopes for some sucker to read him. That sucker was me."

etc

So yeah. I'll give this one a miss next time I am at the library but I enjoyed the laughs.

[cuchulainkevin]

The First & Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever..
M

Sorry, Pat.

But anytime I see any mention of this disgusting piece of SHIT, I have to shout out . . avoid it at all costs.

And not just because the "hero" rapes the person that heals him . . the writing is absolute horse shit to the nth degree.

This author should be beaten to a pulp and I would do if I ever encountered the pig bitch.

Donaldson equals the worst garbage I've have ever heard about . . cause after that first chapter, I tore the book to shreads.

I would burn this motherfucker to death if I could.

So, wait, you're sayin you didn't enjoy it?

[cuchulainkevin]

The First & Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever..
M

Sorry, Pat.

But anytime I see any mention of this disgusting piece of SHIT, I have to shout out . . avoid it at all costs.

And not just because the "hero" rapes the person that heals him . . the writing is absolute horse shit to the nth degree.

This author should be beaten to a pulp and I would do if I ever encountered the pig bitch.

Donaldson equals the worst garbage I've have ever heard about . . cause after that first chapter, I tore the book to shreads.

I would burn this motherfucker to death if I could.

I only had that kind of reaction to Terry Goodkind

Donaldson is't an enjoyable read by any stretch, but I have to give him credit for breaking out of the cookie-cutter LOTR mould.

Not a fan of the prose, or the hero for that matter, but he had some good world-builder ideas.

He's duology Mordant's Need was much more accessable to the reader.

The Mithgar books were very vanilla, imo. The first editions sold well because of the awesome Alan Lee art. The author made the "warrows" a bit more bad-ass than hobbits but the story is basically a returned Sauron tries to resurect Morgoth in order to take over the world.

the interesting factoid is that the duology preceded the trilogy in writing- because it was a direct sequel to the LOTR that follows the fwarves attempt to retake Moria. When the liscensing of Middle Earth fell through the new publishers asked the writer to pen an origin story that then became the "trilogy".


Like Brooks, he later expanded his "world" to encompass non-Tolkieny ripoffs

[cuchulainkevin]

... as well as Edding's Belgariard and Malorian.

M

A book the author enjoyed writing so much that he wrote it a SECOND time.

[Penny-Whistle]

ugh Terry Goodkind.

I hated that series. Hate is not too strong a word. But I kept reading mostly because I was astonished that it was possible for each book to get successively worse. It is a little like watching Game of Thrones.

[vivsavage]

I too was attracted by the book covers, but the writing is pretty amateur-level stuff. Tolkien it ain't. I remember White Dwarf savaging the series. The author's writing has improved immeasurably since.

[vivsavage]

I don't actually see that much of a lotr connection, aside from perhaps the flavour.

It was originally conceived as a LOTR sequel. He just changed some of the names.